Post-postmodernism oens the possiblity of reformation f spiritulity to replace the postmodern losses with the new centre of authority in the cosmi Christ, of truth in the living expression of God, of meaning in the Cosmic coming Kingdom of God, loss of integration with nature in relationship to the personhood of nature
2. Missiological Gap
In the 1990’s to 2020’s, locked into people group thinking, US
missions strategies were largely irrelevant in the global cities.
We missed the Urban Millenium – as it became reduced to a
Decade.
Cities morphed into Megalopolises and Conurbanisations.
Grigg, Viv. The Spirit of Christ and The Postmodern City, Emeth
Press
3. • Occasionally write: This is based on The Spirit
of Christ and the Postmodern City. 12 copies at
Willam Carey Publishers table.
• Occasionally think: Professor of Urban
Leadership at William Carey International
University
– Started the MA in Transformational Urban
Leadership (MATUL) in multiple schools globally to
train leaders of movements in the slums.
4. Personal 50 Year Urban Mission Framework:
Transformation of the World’s Cities
1. Mobilize catalytic teams to global slums (1.3 Billion)
from West (70’s-90’s)
2. Catalyze indigenous movements of 10,000 disciples,
churches, Bible school in slums of each of 6600 cities
(90’s-2015)
3. Movements engage in significant transformation of
slums (95-2020)
4. Movements for urban transformation sparked among
the urban elites (2000-2025)
5. Transformation of culture, philosophies and
structures of conurbanizations (2020-2050) to
welcome back the King.
Attempted and failed
No reflection, no dream:
no dream, no strategy.
5. Our Moment in Time
• We are past the collapse of
Christendom (1945+/-)
Western modernism (1970s?)
no-man’s land of postmodernism (1980’s-2010?)
• Post-postmodernism - It’s a divine moment
open to those who will take it (2015-???)
6. Conversion and Sanctification of Urban Corridors
– What does A Kingdom-transformed Megalopolis
look like?
– How may the cosmic Christ transform post-
Postmodernism
7. Emergent Polarizations
Socio-geography of post-Postmodern city
The Easy stuff: Starting Points
Slums
Trailer parks
Multi-family
Peasants in the City
People group thinking
will do fine.
Informal Migrant Economy
Politics of Nature
Environmental Gospel
8. Expansion of Dear, L.A. as Postmodern Urbanism
.
Dreamscapes
Edge Cities
Privatopia
.
Carcerial Cities
Fortified Cities
Mean Streets
Informal Migrant Economy
Politics of Nature
Middle Class
Churches
Mega-Churches will
do fine
Justice
movements
keep
emerging
Emergent Polarizations
Socio-geography of post-Postmodern city
9. Socio-geography of post-Postmodern city
Two tiered cities
Stock Exchange
Culture of megalopolis
Politico-Economic
polarization
Expansion of Dear, L.A. as Postmodern Urbanism
Exploitive
Globalization
Dreamscapes
Edge Cities
Privatopia
Interdictory
Spaces
Carcerial
Cities
Fortified
Cities
Mean Streets
Informal Migrant
Economy
Politics of Nature
12. The Question: If post-
Postmodern
Culture could be
integrated around the
Integrator of the
Universe…?
13. Q: How does the Cosmic Christ impact values and
structures of the post-Post-modern megalopolises
Building on declaration of Jesus the Cosmic Integrator
and Revival (that experience of the Immanence of the
Spirit), what do vision and strategies for Transformation
(Conversion, Sanctification of Cities) look like?
14. 5 Core of Collapsing Western
Modernism
Modernism
• Autonomous Authority
mediated by State,
University, Corporation
• Rationalist search for
integrating truth
• Nation-States
• Man the Machine
• Rationalist Materialism
Post-modernism
15. 5 Themes of Transitional Vacuum of
Postmodernism
Modernism
• Autonomous Authority
mediated by State,
University
• Rationalist search for
integrating truth
• Nation-States
• Man the Machine
• Rationalist Materialism Post-modernism
• Loss of Authority,
Integration & Meaning
• All Truths True
• New World Order
Global Economy
• Postmodern
Schizophrenia and
Evolutionary
Determinism
• Death of Rationalist
Materialism &
Ethereal Spirituality
16. Mission Proposal: Christ as Center of
post-Postmodernism in Cities
Modernism
• Autonomous
Authority
mediated by State,
University
• Rationalist search
for integrating
truth
• Nation-States
• Man the Machine
• Rationalist
Materialism
Post-modernism
• Loss of Authority,
Integration &
Meaning
• All Truths True
• New World Order
Global Economy
• Postmodern
Schizophrenia and
Evolutionary
Determinism
• Death of
Rationalist
Materialism &
Ethereal
Spirituality
Post-Postmodernism
• Integrative Christ
as Integrator of
Wisdom,
Structure, Being
• Alternative
Kingdom Order
• Redefinition of
the
Anthropological
• Personhood
Infusing Matter
17. 1. Reintegration Around King &
Kingdom as Universal Centre
Post-post-modernism
• Jesus-Integrator
Authority
• Coherence of Story
• Future Hope
• Integration (Col 1:15)
• Community (He is an
“Usness”)
Post-Modernism
•Loss of Authority in Govt,
Academe, Religion
•Incoherent Meaning
•Loss of Hope
•Disintegration as end of
Modern Project
•Individual as
Autonomous
Building on Evangelism and
Revival:
18. 2. From a New World Order of Oppression & Destruction
to an Alternative Peacemaking Kingdom Order
• Defense of the Marginalized
• Affirmation of Cultures, Tribes and localised self-
sustaining economies
• Creation of Public Space for pluralism
• Neither inciting Anger (Alinsky?) nor non-
engagement with oppression (Evangelicalism?)
• Diffusion of economic, social, political power
Building on Evangelism and Revival:
19. 3. Personhood Infusing Matter
• Moral Care of the Environment
• Localized Cooperative vs. Capitalist Consumer Society
• Personhood as Source of Energy
• Working with the Expansive Creativity of Universe
• Wisdom Societies Beyond the Knowledge Economies
Building on Evangelism and Revival:
Half of the world’s city population will be slums by 2025 - we can
transform these, but we will need an evangelical and Pentecostal
theology of land, land rights, and people power.
21. 4. From Evolutionary Determinism to
Redefinition of the Anthropological
• Devaluation of
Humanness
• DNA Determinism
• Global McDonaldization
• Fragmentation
• Schizophrenia
• Image as Substance
Building on Evangelism and Revival:
22. 4. From Evolutionary Determinism to
Redefinition of the Anthropological
• Devaluation of
Humanness
• DNA Determinism
• Global McDonaldization
• Fragmentation
• Schizophrenia
• Image as Substance
• Dignity
• Worth
• Meaning
• Hope
• Community
• Holism
• Integrity
• Beauty is in the Artistry
of God
Building on Evangelism and Revival:
23. Beyond academics - Prophecy
informs strategy
• If God could allow an
earthquake to destroy
Christchurch, New
Zealand
• a godly city
• Why would he not annihilate Los
Angeles?
• City of economic
oppression, destroyer of
families, exporter of
pornography, destroyer of
global cultures, centre of
homosexuality, unfettered
individualism, exploitative
wealth disparity, into which
the luxurious goods of the
earth, and its prostitution
pour?
24. And God – Sovereign Judge
• The Jonah Strategy: to
warn the people at the
centre of the Babylonian
universal city culture?
• Why aren’t we following
it?
25. The MA in Transformational Urban
Leadership
• Training Church-planters in Ethnic
Communities
• Engaging with the real needs of Identity,
Oppression, Poverty